Volunteer Society Nepal : The best experience for volunteers, the best value for Nepal.
Julie and Andrea have been volunteering at our local school and have done a great job empowering girls! Read Julie’s story below.
This all started in a very funny way. We didn’t have any lofty ambitions at all. My son is working in Kathmandu through the University of Washington. He said he was going to Kathmandu for three months to work on a road project. I said, “Well, maybe I should come and take you out to dinner for your hard work.” I asked my friend Andrea if she would join me. I’m a third grade teacher at Liberty Elementary in Marysville, WA and in order to get the release time from school. Luckily, my principal at school is very supportive so I was granted my leave. Also after working at the school, we were able to take my son out to dinner.
The next step was finding a recognised volunteer teaching program. I looked online and Volunteer Society Nepal appealed to me because of the well designed website. I looked at other programs but Volunteer Society Nepal was the one that touched me and that is when I contacted you.
When we arrived I was assigned to work primarily with Ashma Karki a third grade teacher. I worked with her on classroom management, questioning strategies and ways to help students become more involved and participate during class. I also talked to her about making sure she called on girls to answer questions as often as she called on boys. She is a delightful teacher and I loved working with her
Andrea works at Hewlett Packard. When we were talking with the principal, we began discussing ways for Andrea to get involved. For example about ways to empower the girls who are high achievers in Math. Andrea decided then to create the Andrea Math Awards for girls in 5, 6 ,7 & 8 grade. She also wanted to go to the upper elementary classes and inspire the girls and give them a vision of what they could become. Andrea wanted to show them that their ideas and input are valuable too! When for example, a computer game for girls needs to be designed, who better to design it than girls? Primary girl students will be recognised as well for their achievements in math by the Julie Math Awards.
We realized that the girls in Nepal work hard and do so much more than just studying. We saw how hard girls work during our homestay. Kaja’s daughter was up every day by 5:00 cleaning the floors, doing the dishes etc. Also, during our discussion with the school principal it became evident that there was a need to support highly capable girls who due to circumstances beyond their control might not be able to afford the school fees. It was at that time that we decided to pay the fees for two of the three girls in this picture. A friend of mine notified me that she would like to cover the third girls fees!
Thanks to Julie and Andrea, the girls at our school are more confident in their Math skills and teachers have gained more skills and focus on girls. On top of that, 3 girls have received a sponsorship to keep studying at the school. Thank you very much Julie and Andrea for all your help. We hope to see you again here in Nepal and wish you all the best!
For more information about our teaching placements, check out our page here. If you like to sponsor a child, please check out our page about child sponsorships.